I spotted this question over at the Linked In Q/A boards. The entire question is as follows:

 
How do I select a web designer that also understands SEO?

I own a service company and I need my web sited resigned. What things should I be looking for? Some of my many questions are: 

Of the many technologies –Java, Flash, etc. what is most appealing to the eye and the search engines? How do most web designers handle web site updates? What price range should I expect for a basic brochure? How important is video and audio advertising? How do I select a web designer that also understands SEO?

- Chuck Rylant, MBA, CRTP

Aesthetic appeal is subjective, but the message you are sending with your website should be a fully conscious, coordinated effort.

In terms of building for search, think of your website as two parts of a whole. The first part is for the search user. What are they looking for? What makes sense for them to find? How will the rest of your website contribute to what a search user sees first? How can you impact them most effectively if given only a few moments of their time?

The second part is for the customer. What will they see? Where will they go? What are they supposed to do now that they’ve found your website?

Clean coding and strait forward presentation are always a best bet. Revolutionary effects in bleeding edge technologies have their place but guess what, simple carts and predictable navigation convert!

As with any contract work, qualify an agency by comparing their proposal with the proposals of their peers. Ask for examples of their rankings in competitive queries and ask for their expectations of your placement. Chances are they will have a pretty good idea right off the bat. Be wary of automated SEO software or ‘first place’ guarantees as they are the unicorns of our industry.

YouTomb is a site, started by MIT students, that collects all the ‘dead,’ or previously removed, videos from youtube that were found to be in violation of copyright or other undisclosed reason, and posts them for all to see. YouTomb is currently monitoring 194835 videos, and has identified 4395 videos taken down for alleged copyright violation and 13348 videos taken down for other reasons. By deferring to the ambiguity of GNU public licenses and fair use policies, any legalities resulting in the removal of the original content from YouTube will take some time to be redirected to the new web entity.

Great work boys!

Without equal online opportunity, and the truly nondiscriminatory method of data presentation known as network neutrality, the internet as we know it will go the route of highly filtered and commercialized public radio and television networks. Partnerships between internet service providers (ISP’s) and large corporations are manipulating the equal opportunity of the internet into a custom playing field by which start-ups, and competition in general, must pay against deep corporate pockets in order to compete.

Large powerful telephone and cable companies, such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, are lobbying to abolish network neutrality by building out a new price-regulated infrastructure by which to charge consumers. The pricing model will allocate the majority of bandwidth, or data packet priority, to highly commercialized, or otherwise network sponsored, websites and services that will pay the infrastructure providers themselves for priority consumer facing visibility. As a result, early concept .coms, entrepreneurs, and those unwilling, or unable, to pay the exorbitant fees will enjoy far less speed and public exposure. Besides the obvious loss of choices, and overall value to the consumer, extracting competition stifles ingenuity. Before now, there was no other median to which you could take a $10 domain such as amazon.com and roll it into a billion dollar empire. Now, should Amazon happen to pay for sponsorship with a provider, you may have to compete directly with them for placement that could have been previously obtained with research and execution rather than sheer capital. The domestic economic impact of devaluing the experience of the internet for low paying users channels the majority of web traffic to sponsored sites, and in turn, shifts profits from smaller taxpaying businesses to trans-national mega-corporations not subject to local economies. Directing nonqualified consumers to generalized sponsored websites may divert prime converting traffic to settle on sales of unqualified goods and services under the guise of “convenience to the consumer,” and, “an open forum for all to compete.”
 
The issue at heart is nothing less than a battle over control of the internet or a shift from empowered consumers to regulated consumers. The value of the web was established as, and remains to this day, an ‘end to end’ entity, meaning that the bulk of available construct, we call the internet, is comprised by the aggregate of user contribution and computing power, whether for profit, recreation, or simply publicly accessible information under any label. Online content is not only user generated, but belongs intellectually to its creator, unless otherwise implied or contributed. What falls largely into question however, is the idea of regulated access to said content.

If large infrastructure is successful in its attempt to lobby congress, they will have the ability to ‘gate keep’ the intellectual property of others for the sole purpose of selling back to the consumer levels, or gradients, of ad density. Sponsored content will weigh heavy in lesser packages, based largely on the price a consumer pays for subscription. Where sponsoring is not blatant, partnered companies will enjoy larger allotments of allocated bandwidth giving the falsified impression of a superior service. In certain cases select competition to a sponsored company may simply be ‘incompatible’ with the service provider’s version of the internet. In other words consumers opting for an uninhibited, unfettered online experience, to which we have all grown accustom, will need to pay the highest of the monthly infrastructure provider offerings.

What we are witnessing is the shift of perceived entitlement of one type of service provider restricting the use of others. To the consumer the comparison can be likened to renting a hotel room, then paying again to rent the furniture; or paying to enter the zoo, then again to see the animals. Yes, internet service providers own the infrastructure, but not the content embedded within. Therefore they are not entitled to choose which services are available to a consumer, or the speed at which one service is delivered in contrast to another based solely on the representation fee it gathers from the company. Of actual entitlement, very little of the equation belongs to the infrastructure providers. They are simply not entitled to compensation for work that is not their own. 98% of what a user sees online is the efforts of other users. Routers, network hubs and centralized data centers are mostly established by the infrastructure providers to do the very necessary, low-level, function of relaying user generated content from one end user to another. Infrastructure providers already provide a service; to sustain the infrastructure, for which they are well paid. Taxing corporate entities in order to ensure that their web properties and services are delivered with priority and placement is a distortion of both ethics and free markets. Not to mention that their self-proclaimed ‘metamorphosis’ from infrastructure providers to middle men will surely pass the additional expense of the products and services we already use online back to the consumer.

Collecting unjustified additional compensation, in exchange for actively devaluing the user experience, is a disservice to the consumer. Beyond that it implies an ownership in user generated content, entitlement to regulation of consumer choices, substitution of ‘best answer’ for ‘paid answer’ and self-promotion from service providers to service middle men; all this to merit upward price flux for end users while simultaneously charging companies for placement, or even representation, under each internet service provider’s ‘version’ of the internet. It is more than apparent that we need some sort of federal regulation in the matter. Despite nationwide efforts to draft positive regulation out of a consensus of central issues we find ourselves often in disagreement because of the nature of the median and its supporters. This is largely because the idea of enforcement or standardization of a ruling governing the internet is a contradiction to the very principles for which it stands. It seems ironic that the crusade to sustain and protect a decentralized, nonpartisan, unregulated, free internet may prove its undoing when matched against the very pointed, exceptionally organized, corporate sponsored campaigns set to the contrary.

For the purposes of discussion let’s assume that you are a manufacturer of hammers. Like many manufacturers, you have constructed a line of hammers intended for unique purposes, carpentry, framing, jewelry etc. Within those classes you have subdivisions, or series, of quality ranging from entry level to professional grade.

Among the carpentry hammers you have a super-deluxe hammer called the XJ-9000, which also happens to be from the most expensive XJ series. The XJ-9000 is not a new release, and has enjoyed some mild popularity among niche markets; relevant to keyword context which we’ll get to later.

So now we have this stellar super-deluxe carpentry hammer called the XJ-9000 with a dedicated page on the website. The problem is that only those touched by direct, or viral, marketing campaigns know that it exists. Meaning that the only people finding the XJ-9000 page from a search engine are those who already know the hammer exists and explicitly punch “XJ-9000″ or some derivative into the query. This is all fine and great but what about the masses who just want a super-deluxe carpentry hammer? Good thing you can rank a page for multiple queries huh?

Think in terms of predefined paths on your website to funnel traffic and qualify them along the way.

You want to channel potential buyers from the search engine result pages (SERPs) through appropriate landing pages to the page that their query has qualified them for. In other words, if a consumer punches in “super-deluxe carpentry hammers” then you know that you have someone ready to be wooed on your presentation of the XJ series of hammers. However, if a consumer finds your site by simply searching on “carpentry hammers” then they may need to be further qualified before they are ready to fixate on a particular hammer, or even series. Because you have multiple pages, you have the opportunity to give people exactly what they are looking for, NOT what you are trying to sell them.

98% of the time you will get a maximum of 2 listings in the search results so make them count!

Here are some hypothetical scenarios:

Query: “super-deluxe carpentry hammers”

Really may be asking:
What is the best carpentry hammer I can buy?

Possible Answers:
XJ series overview
Page with comparison of XJ series to competitors
Page with comparison of XJ series to lesser series

Query: “carpentry hammers”

Really may be asking:
Who makes a decent carpentry hammer?

Possible Answers:
Carpentry hammers overview page
Page showing the companies dedication to making great [carpentry] hammers
Making a case for what series a professional would choose vs. the casual handyman

Query: “XJ-9000″

Really may be saying:
I’ve heard of the XJ-9000 but I’m not sure if I’m ready to buy it yet.

Possible answers:
XJ-9000 model page
Industry specific page justifying the price tag with supporting features
Positive custom feedback or reviews

Think of yourself as the consumer and what you would hope to find had you entered the query yourself. Don’t assume that that they know your product name. Try to focus specific keywords on pages that are relevant to the question that is being asked by the query. Remember that a search engine will prioritize very clinically what it determines are your best result pages for a given query, unless to tell it. Don’t overcrowd your Meta keywords with everything you can think to call your product but rather use it to reiterate what is being said by the page itself. If you identify patterns and commonalities in how your pages are being found then tweak the pages and meta to address the question that is being asked. Shoot for common misspellings of your keyword such as “XJ9000″ or “XJ-900.” A page will really speak for itself so make the page relevant to the message and make the message relevant to the query.

I was giving some thought to the idea of utilizing the occasional social networking platform, such as Digg, Technorati or Sphinn, to channel ‘unqualified’ traffic to your website in the hope of gleaning some percentage of untargeted interest. The following is a re-post of an entry I made on another blog to the same effect, Leveraging Social Media for SEO.

Leveraging Social Media for SEO

November 10th, 2007
Ah, networking. The social media blitz has taken the linear baby blue columns of familiar SERPs to a new level with exciting UIs that grab at our attention in ways more contributory to live interaction. We decide collectively what’s hot and what’s not by promoting based on our natural affinities. We don’t have to slog through pages of what we asked for. We are told in a heartbeat what’s best, relevant, unbelievable, and absolutely must see. What’s important to this median is targeted buzz and being able to channel traffic in a method that allows you to maximize the value of your website regardless if you are promoting a political candidate or selling prosthetic limbs. In the human network if you can capture interest, your peers will promote your pages for you. Mechanically you should carve out a predetermined path to funnel traffic through. Landing pages should be a baseboard. Exciting content is nothing more than a flash in the pan for a web surfer so developing quick paths to discourage bounce increases the odds that they will be lured to the reason you created the site in the first place; they may even find something compelling to link to.

Think of your site holistically. If you were a salesman you wouldn’t just walk up to someone and say, “Buy my product!” You would need to have an introduction, build rapport and credibility, introduce the consumer to the options and finally offer a solution. Sometimes there are shortcuts and sometimes there are not.

The Will it Blend site by Blendtec is a brilliant example of leveraging social media for SEO. One of many targeted buzz bits is a hilarious Chuck Norris rip where Tom Dickson, who happens to be the Founder of Blendtec, appears in a short blending an assortment of rubber dolls in the likeness of thugs and our hero, Chuck Norris. My God you would never put these rock hard rubber figurines in a new blender, but he does! The industrial blender seems to pulverize the obviously stressful load with ease. After which Chuck emerges from the rubber dust unscathed. At the conclusion of the short, while they still have our attention, we are shown where to see more crazy stuff being blended (willitblend.com) and a listing of vendors where to obtain the blender. Below the clip there are a series of similar shorts blending everything from iPhones to tiki torches. To the left we see well placed navigation that allows us quick access to the company blog for more information, or a direct link to the product lineup if we’re ready to shop.

On a social media site like Digg we are captivated by buzzwords like ‘iPhone’ or ‘Chuck Norris’ connected with the radical thought of blending or destroying them! Diggers will promote on the basis of humor while incidentally encouraging links and traffic generation to a page with access to direct sales.

I would consider the Blendtec example a shortcut because it simultaneously satisfies rapport, credibility, an option, in the form of the model used, and you are a single click away from the full product offerings. Awesome!

Written by Nicholas Ramirez